Sunday, May 29, 2011

Alpacas and Winery Tour

Itching to have a getaway day trip from Portland, my partner and I just drove to Sherwood area. While looking for a place to visit, we found out that this weekend, an alpaca farm in Sherwood is open to public, while many wineries in the same area are open for wine tasting. Ever since I heard about alpaca wool being much warmer than sheep wool and hypoallergenic, I've been curious about alpacas. I wanted to see what they are like.

The alpaca farm is just 30 minutes drive from southwest of Portland in Sherwood, Oregon. We enjoyed the drive through the rolling hills. As we arrive the farm and come close to these animals, I keep hearing funny noises that they make, different from any other animals I've heard. It's hard to describe or try to imitate the noise. They are just as funny looking as they are funny sound, but soooo cute!

After the visit to the alpaca farm, we visited a winery nearby for wine tasting. Unfortunately, I am ultra sensitive to alcohol so I just let my husband enjoy it. But it happened to be sunny at the moment, and the scenery there was beautiful, so it was definitely worth visiting.

It's so gorgeous out there that made me wish that I could sit on one of these chairs and fold paper all day! I bet I can be so inspired by the beauty there.

Looking at the alpacas at the farm made me want to make an origami alpaca after I got home. I seem to do this every time after I see an animal. I didn't know of any origami alpaca instructions, but I realized that I do have a book with an origami llama. Which made me think what's the difference between alpacas and llamas anyways?

I ended up researching on the web, and I found out that the llamas are roughly twice as large as alpacas. Llamas have very coarse outer coat over softer inner coat, as opposed to alpacas, which have very fine, single coat. In addition, llamas produce far less fiber than alpacas, despite its much larger size. This is because alpacas have been domesticated and carefully bred for thousands of years as a luxury fiber-producing animal. On the other hand, llamas have been bred for the same amount of time as pack-carrying animal. But they are very similar in looks.